Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Skype is planning to launch one of the most requested feature , Group Video Chat sometime next week. Skype already supports one-to-one Video Chat. The group video chat is limited to 5 people. The feature will be initially free and Skype plans to charge for the service later in future. Video conferencing is finally gaining momentum. There are rumors of apple supporting Video chat application as part of iPhone. Also, the stolen iPhone 4 shows both front and back camera. Some folks say the new iPhone might support recording 720p HD video. The next logical step for Skype would be to support Mobile Video Chat. How about creating a mobile Chatroulette? Its worthy of note that some of the new TV’s come with Skype inbuilt. So think of a Multi Party Video conference using your big HD TV. Initially the Multi Video chat will be supported for Windows and Mac comes later. Sorry Mac.

Skype is still viewed as a Consumer VoIP product. However it is making steady progress in the enterprise space. I think Multi Party Video chat is a good tool for enterprise communication. They may probably remove the limitation of 5 users and support more users for enterprise. Watch out Cisco, Tanderberg, and Lifesize.